Posts by DaveMcM

Re: Millenium bug 2.0

I have the same issue with almost reverse geography - I’m in the highlands but most of the lazier sites are adamant that I’m in Manchester…

I still have a copy of Visual Studio 2008 on my work Windows 11 laptop for this very reason - it is the last version that supported the Compact Framework SDK - and I am / was the author of a custom scanner app for Motorola ( / Symbol / Zebra) MT2000 series scanners which linked into our ERP software... The old CE scanners are still very much in use by some customers, although we are slowly trying to replace them with Android based hardware.

The clean install with previous version licence key still works great - I recently installed Windows 11 Professional on a new VM and successfully activated it with an old Windows 8 Professional retail licence key I had lying around. Depending how recently that licence key was associated with an activated windows installation you occasionally have to go through some additional hoops to confirm that licence isn't in use anywhere else, but it's always activated for me.

Re: some old Netgear equipment will be stuffed.

I recently retired my ancient ReadyNas NV+ partly for this reason... that and the fact that the internal PSU (the second in it's lifetime) was starting to get a bit "wobbly".

Re: Mountain rescue

I get the same on the Tarbat peninsula in the highlands... a lot of my "nearest" shops show up in searches as being in Elgin which by boat they probably are at around 25 miles but to actually drive there around all the water is nearer 75 miles and I'd have to go through Inverness on the way!

I did a similar thing with a whole Man United theme pack - including sounds, icons and cursors - applied to a Newcastle supporting helpdesk manager who frequently neglected to lock his PC even when he wasn't in the office. I didn't have access to group policies back in those days but I did know the registry key to set to prevent him from changing it... and then went on holiday for a fortnight.

Re: Wow!

Mojave hasn't actually dropped 32bit app support yet but it is the supposedly the last macOS release that will support them When you run a 32bit app it pops up a warning that the app may affect your computers performance and needs updating but it does still run. The complete drop of 32bit apps from macOS is going to be in whatever california based codename Apple come up with for the 2019 macOS release.

Three of the various PCs and NAS servers dotted round my house go by the names Holly, Hactar and Hex... The hardware gets replaced from time to time but the names remain.

Sir Terry will be sadly missed in this house after years of bringing joy through his writing.

I feel like I may have some rereading to do....

Re: Subscription?

I can only speak for iOS but I seem to remember the original iOS releases needed an Office 365 subscription to do anything other than view a document but a recent update started to allow creation and basic editing without a subscription.

Re: RIP Squeezebox :-(

The Squeezepad app for iPad is pretty decent - standard "free" functionality is just to be a remote control for Squeezebox hardware but can also be made to function as a full on client too with a couple of quid in app purchase... Been using it a couple of years and it works brilliantly.

Re: Even the regular 6 is too big

The double touch on the home button feature to drop the screen down and make the top of it thumb reachable is a nice touch and works pretty well, showing that Apple have at least considered one handed use issues, but even then the extra width of the 6 is still an problem for me and I'm still hitting the "change keyboard" button when stretching for the "numeric keyboard" button far more often than I'd like - maybe I've just got stubby thumbs?.

I'll admit the reasonably chunky case I've got on my 6 adds a couple of mm to the girth and doesn't help, but without a case the 6 is a thing of slim beauty with all the tractive properties of a bar of wet soap.

I've yet to see a 6+ in the wild to gauge the size of it but from comparison photos with the 6 my brain has settled on "too big" and left it there.

Re: "side loaded" apps?

From what I've read elsewhere the fake apps are "legitimately" signed using an enterprise signing profile (used by companies to write and distribute apps internally without the app store - whether this profile is genuine or stolen in this case isn't clear) and the user is also asked to install and trust this signing profile as part of the installation process...

Stupid is as stupid does...

Re: Battery life without the BS?

I've had mine a week or so now and haven't noticed any reduction in usable battery life compared to the iPad 3 it replaced - if anything I've actually been using the Air 2 slightly more that the 3 as it is so much lighter and easier to carry around with me.

It wasn't mentioned in the article (or if it was I missed it) but pricing wise there have been reductions above the 16Gb base model as the 32Gb is no longer an option so the 64Gb is now at the old 32Gb price and the 128Gb is at the old 64Gb price.

Re: Yosemite is more available

While there is an open beta it is limited in numbers to the first million registrants (https://appleseed.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/) and I'm not sure if an open preview release has been made available through it yet - as far as I am aware the first 3 previews have been developer only.

I think as you mention the major difference this year is that people like me on the iOS developer program can get hold of the OS X developer previews whereas with Mavericks etc you had to be on the OS X developer program to get the previews.